AT RANDOM: GRANTS AND GIVING

Donations from individuals added up after '04 tsunami

January 18, 2007|By Charles Storch, Tribune staff reporter.

Dec. 26 marked the second anniversary of the tsunami that spread devastation across South Asia. A new tally shows private sources in this country raised $3.16 billion in funds and goods for disaster relief, a great share of it the accumulation of small donations from individuals.

The report from the Center of Philanthropy at Indiana University, working with University of Michigan researchers, found U.S. individuals contributed $2.78 billion of the total, with corporations providing $340 million and foundations $40 million through 2005.

According to the report, 25 percent of U.S. households contributed. The median donation was $50, and the average gift was $135. Households with annual incomes of less than $50,000 gave an average $104 -- not that much less than the $165 average for households with two to four times the income.

Eugene Tempel, the center's executive director, said the response by Americans "was by far the largest outpouring of giving for an international disaster in recent memory."

Venture capital: The Chicago Public Education Fund, a social venture philanthropy that supports programs to improve student performance at the city's public schools, said it has raised $15 million and "closed" its Leadership Fund II. The fund reached its goal by year-end with a $675,000 commitment from one of its many high-profile directors, hedge fund billionaire Kenneth Griffin.

This fund was launched in 2004 and is to make investments through April 2008 that are intended to prepare quality teachers and principals for the schools.

Grants: In recognition of gifts by the Lavin Family Foundation of Glencoe to Tulane University, the New Orleans school named its new, $40 million student center the Lavin-Bernick Center for University Life. The amount of the donations was not disclosed, but the foundation's tax filings show gifts to Tulane totaling $10 million from 2002 to 2004; another $1 million grant was announced in December. Tulane alumna Carol Lavin Bernick is executive chairman of the Alberto-Culver Co. beauty products firm and a daughter of its founders.

Former Chicago banker Lowell Stahl and his late wife, Nancy, gave $1 million to his alma mater, St. Patrick High School. The Chicago school said this was the second $1 million gift from the Northbrook couple. It has named its cultural center after Lowell Stahl.

With the help of a $255,000 challenge grant from Chicago's Richard H. Driehaus Charitable Lead Trust, the Hegeler Carus Foundation in La Salle was able to buy and will soon start restoring the Julius Hegeler home, across the street from the historic Hegeler Carus Mansion in La Salle. The home was built for the heir of a 19th Century zinc smelting fortune and designed by the Chicago architectural firm Pond & Pond. The foundation said its goal is to raise in a year the $510,000 it needs to meet the Driehaus challenge.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation of Princeton, N.J., said it will give $975,000 over 18 months to 13 U.S. hospitals or their foundations to study or implement methods to retain their experienced nurses. In Illinois, Edward Foundation in Naperville and Rush Copley Foundation in Aurora are each to receive about $75,000.

The Owen Schiff Foundation, a donor-advised fund of the DuPage Community Foundation, gave $75,000 to Ronald McDonald House Charities in Oak Brook. Since its founding 20 years ago, the Wheaton-based DuPage Community Foundation has distributed more than $5 million in grants, including about $820,000 in the fiscal year that ended last June.

The AT&T Foundation gave $10,000 to the Concordia Avondale Campus in Chicago for new computers and software.

Kudos: The Illinois Humanities Council's annual Public Humanities Award is to go this year to Barbara Gaines, Chicago Shakespeare Theater's artistic director. She is to receive the honor at an April 26 luncheon in the University Club of Chicago.

People: Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art said Sally Meyers Kovler will lead a $1.2 million fundraising effort tied to the museum's 40th anniversary gala, to be held Oct. 6. ... The Arthritis Foundation's greater Chicago chapter elected to its board Robert Guenthner, Thomas Estey, state Rep. Elizabeth Coulson (R-Glenview) and Melody Spann-Cooper. ... Illinois Facilities Fund hired Sarah Bush as development director and Amy Stewart as business development director.